Cecil Helman, who has died aged 65 of motor neurone disease, achieved international renown as the foremost expert on the clinical applications of medical anthropology. His focus was the cross-cultural study of health, illness and medical care - a specialism he largely established - but his talents extended well beyond medicine and anthropology into art and literature. Cecil's work with traditional healers, especially in Brazil and South Africa, allied to 27 years' experience as a GP in the NHS and a period as a ship's doctor, helped him to develop an original and illuminating approach to the complexities of healthcare provision in multicultural populations.

His textbook Culture, Health and Illness, first published in 1984 and now in its fifth edition, has been part of the training of most UK GPs since the 1980s, and is used as a basic text in 39 different countries, including 120 universities, medical schools and nursing colleges in the US and Canada. In addition, many of his research articles are required reading on medical-anthropology courses, and he was a frequent adviser to the World Health Organisation.

All this, and his numerous lectures around the world, have helped legions of doctors and other healthcare professionals to see beyond their patients' presentation of symptoms to understand how these relate to their belief systems and cultural backgrounds. He devised what has become known as the "folk model of the consultation," which encourages patients to give their experience of illness a narrative, as a means of empowerment.

Cecil Helman was born in Cape Town, South Africa, into a long line of rabbis and medical practitioners. He qualified as a doctor under the cardiac surgeon Dr Christiaan Barnard at the University of Cape Town in 1967, but left South Africa two years later because of the apartheid system. He moved to London, where he became a GP. In 1972 he took a postgraduate diploma in social anthropology at University College London, under Professor Mary Douglas, and in 1982-83 he won a fellowship in social medicine and health policy to Harvard medical school.

Cecil was a charismatic teacher and an outstanding communicator of anthropological concepts to non-specialist audiences. His courses at Brunel University, where he taught from 1990, becoming professor in the school of social sciences in 2005, and University College London, where he was senior lecturer in primary care from 1983 onwards, were in great demand. As the value of medical anthropology and his role within it became appreciated, so the number of worldwide requests for his presence as a keynote speaker multiplied; he had accepted close to 50 such by the end of his life. In 2004 the American Anthropological Association recognised him with its career achievement award, and the following year the Royal Anthropological Institute awarded him its Lucy Mair medal "for consistent excellence in applied anthropology".

Cecil strove to develop his talents in other fields. Over the years he combined several different careers into a creative synthesis - all illumined by a concern for the humanistic side of medicine - especially the role of stories and narratives in medical care and what they reveal about the inner worlds of both doctor and patient.

His artistic talents are evident in his paintings, prose poems, fables and short fictions and his 2004 memoir, Suburban Shaman: Tales from Medicine's Frontline, in which he colourfully and wittily recalls medical training in apartheid South Africa, ship's doctoring in the Mediterranean, family practice in upper- and lower-class London, and his work with traditional healers around the world. It was serialised in 2006 by BBC Radio 4 as a Book of the Week and won the Royal College of General Practitioners' Abercrombie medal "for an outstanding contribution to the literature of general practice".

Spending time with Cecil was like being in one of his books. He gave much thought and meaning to everyday experience and, always the enquiring and informed observer, would reveal his quizzical insights when one least expected it. Lunching with him was a delight. Two or three times a month we would meet and, after lunch, walk around cosmopolitan Crouch End in north London. This would invariably prompt illuminating free-association.

As an example, he was recently stimulated to explore the implications of the growing incidence of pink clothing for girls - to delve into what this revealed about changing attitudes to gender; to compare this with research on illustrations in boys' comics showing increasingly defined shoulder outlines; to consider how fashions vary with ethnicity and different stages of life and how these compared with other parts of the world. He went on to consider likely effects of the credit crunch on gender, fashion and courtship.

Cecil was a generous man, always helpful and encouraging of others' projects and growth. He wanted to be stimulated by friends and colleagues to explore new horizons. In his last month, though he had lost the power of speech and was reduced to writing, he still insisted on discussing emergent research and outlining his next book.

He is survived by his daughter, Zoe, and his former wife, Vetta, with whom he stayed friends to the end.

• Cecil Gerald Helman, doctor and medical anthropologist, born 4 January 1944; died 15 June 2009